1. I am writing to ask for some references on papers on homosexuality/homophobia in Africa, partly out of my own interest and partly for teaching.
I was able to review your paper on "Re-Thinking African Homophobia".
2. Unfortunately, we are unable to publish your work, for which we hope you will find an appropriate forum.
3. With regards to mechanics, for example, the numerous sentences in need of stylistic attention and sentences with awkward transitions to quotes (in both grammar and syntax) suggest a work that is still in the draft stage, and represents oversights that are a distraction to the reader.
4. Again, word choice and prose leave the argument unclear
5. The first 11 pages need to be reshaped -- and perhaps condensed -- to present an organized and clear thesis and critical/theoretical blueprint for the analysis of the selected works.
6. This is hurried. Sentences do not flow with needed detail and transition
7. The writer needs to do more than just say: must offer specifics.
8. This is not to deny the agency of African actors, only to situate that agency in a set of global relations that it seems to me Africans did not construct and do not control.
9. I am interested in knowing how dwarfism might be figured in Kenyan symbolism and if the author is referencing this at all in his representation.
10. I believe the author could reference Cultural Studies scholars such as [Stuart] Hall in the section of the paper where he makes an argument for the importance of pulling together texts including the “overtly political” and the popular.
11. the article would benefit from a clearer precision in its differentiation between these archival modalities, as each of these “archival” structures (from the material to the metaphorical) reflect and call for different questions of method and politics
12. What does “enflesh” really mean or do as a term? [not my fault if you haven’t read Elizabeth Povinelli]
13. I might be misguided, as few sources are cited. [for a 4,000 word piece, where references are included in the word count]
References
Amory D (1997) ‘“Homosexuality” in Africa: Issues and Debates,’ Issue 25, 1, 5-10.Amory D (1998) ‘“Mashoga, Mabasha, and Magai”: Homosexuality on the East African Coast,’ in SO Murray and W Roscoe (eds) Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Sexualities, New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Arondekar A (2005) ‘Without a Trace: Sexuality and the Colonial Archive,’ in Journal of the History of Sexuality, 14.1/2
Boellstorff T (1994) ‘The Emergence of Political Homophobia in Indonesia: Masculinity and National Belonging,’ Ethnos 69, 4, 465-486.
Brutus D (1968) Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison, London: Heinemann.
Currier A (2010) ‘Political Homophobia in Postcolonial Namibia,’ in Gender & Society 24, 1, 110-129.
Hall S (2008) ‘Constituting an Archive,’ in Third Text 15, 35, 89-92.
Hoad N (2007) African Intimacies: Race, Homosexuality, and Globalization, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ireland PR (2013) ‘A Macro-Level Analysis of the Scope, Causes, and Consequences of Homophobia in Africa,’ in African Studies Review 56, 2, 47-66.
Kanogo T (2005) African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900-1950, Oxford: James Currey.
Kariuki JM (1963) ‘Mau Mau’ Detainee, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kaunda K (1962) Zambia Shall be Free, London: Heinemann.
Manalansan MF (1995) ‘In the Shadows of Stonewall: Examining Gay Transnational Politics and the Diasporic Dilemma,’ in GLQ 2, 4, 425-38.
McClintock A (1995) Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, New York: Routledge.
Musila G (2009) ‘Phallocracies and Gynocratic Transgressions: Gender, State Power and Kenyan Public Life,’ in Africa Insight 39, 1, 39-57.
Nyanzi S (2014) ‘Queering Queer Africa,’ in Z Matebeni (Curator) Reclaiming Afrikan: Queer Perspectives on Sexual and Gender Identities, Athlone: Modjaji Books.
Nzegwu N (2006) Family Matters: Feminist Concepts in African Philosophy of Culture, Albany: State University of New York Press.
Owusu M (1978) ‘Ethnography of Africa: The Usefulness of the Useless,’ in American Anthropologist 80, 2, 310-334.
Oyewumi O (1997) The Invention of Women: Making an Africanist Sense of Western Gender Discourses, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Reddy V (2004) ‘Sexuality in Africa: Some Trends, Transgressions, and Tirades,’ in Agenda 62, 2-1, 3-11.
Rubin G (2011) ‘Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,’ in Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader, Durham: Duke University Press, Kindle Edition.
Spillers HJ (1987) ‘Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book,’ in Diacritics 17, 2, 64-81.
Vaughan M (1991) Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Weston K (1993) ‘Lesbian/Gay Studies in the House of Anthropology,’ in Annual Review of Anthropology, 22, 339-367.
White L (1990) The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
14. The author’s stance on that issue is not clear.
15. This paper is very ambitious, possibly too ambitious.
16. the article seeks to do perhaps too many different – albeit important – things at the same time
17. the section on page 5 is very short and convoluted
18. The author’s stance on that issue is not clear.
19. This paper is very ambitious, possibly too ambitious.
20. the title should be more precise
21. Other conceptual notions . . . could benefit from being unpacked somewhat more precisely
22. Unfortunately, we are unable to publish your work, for which we hope you will find an appropriate forum.
23. I might be misguided, as few sources are cited.
24. This paper is very ambitious, possibly too ambitious.
25. I do think that the author misses the opportunity to engage (even if only through footnoting) [U.S.-based archive for article on Africa]
26. The paper would gain in clarity and the argument in terseness if . . .
29. Again, word choice and prose leave the argument unclear
30. This paper is very ambitious, possibly too ambitious.
*
I am never asked to be “simpler” or “clearer” or “more precise” when I write about the U.S. or Jamaica.